Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

XIV.] THOMAS CARLYLE. 437
' Edward Irving's warfare has closed ; if not in victory, yet in
invincibility, and faithful endurance to the end. . . . The voice
of our " son of thunder," with its deep tone of wisdom, has gone
silent so soon. . . . The large heart, with its large bounty,
where wretchedness found solacement, and they that were wander-
ing in darkness, the light as of a home, has paused. The strong
man can no more : beaten on from without, undermined from
within, he must sink overwearied, as at nightfall, when it was
yet but the mid-season of the day. Scotland sent him forth a
Herculean man ; our mad Babylon wore him and wasted him,
with all her engines ; and it took her twelve years. He sleeps
with his fathers, in that loved birth-land : Babylon with its deafen-
ing inanity rages on ; to him henceforth innocuous, unheeded —
for ever.
One who knew him well, and may with good cause love him,
has said : " But for Irving, I had never known what the com-
munion of man with man means. His was the freest, brotherliest,
bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with : I call him,
on the whole, the best man I have ever (after trial enough) found
in this world, or now hope to find."
The first time I saw Irving was six and twenty years ago,
in his native town, Annan. He was fresh from Edinburgh, with
college prizes, high character, and promise. . . . We heard of
famed professors of high matters classical, mathematical, a whole
Wonderland of knowledge : nothing but joy, health, hopefulness
without end, looked out from the blooming young man.
The last time I saw him was three months ago, in London.
Friendliness still beamed from his eyes, but now from amid
unquiet fire ; his face was flaccid, wasted, unsound ; hoary as
with extreme age : he was trembling on the brink of the grave.
Adieu, thou first Friend ; adieu, while this confused twilight of
existence lasts ! Might we meet where Twilight has become
Day !'